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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257470">The Sting and the Fall</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow13/pseuds/shadow13'>shadow13</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(but this is just the friends part), F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Námotober 2020, Pre-Relationship, Stalking, Unfinished Tales, elessar origin, sting origin headcanon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:08:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257470</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow13/pseuds/shadow13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Idril's begetting day, and she has many beautiful presents - but her favorite might just be a small dagger from Tuor.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Idril Celebrindal/Tuor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sting and the Fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“For you, Idril,” Maeglin said, his manner quiet and shy. There was one, so the gathered said, who was great among the Noldor, despite the unfortunate history of his sire. For was Maeglin not skillful, and cunning, and beloved by his uncle?</p>
<p>But Idril felt a horrible chill run through her blood when he looked at her with those dark eyes of his, eyes that pierced through all, just as his father had named him. She did not want the box he brought to her, beautiful as it was, carved in dark wood with the emblem of the House of the King. All the same, she took it in her slender hands, and managed not to tremble as she removed the lid. Some faultless design of his was inside, glimmering silver and opal. She lifted it, and it was a hair net, very much in the style of his mother. Idril felt sick. “I cannot accept this.”</p>
<p>“Idril!” Her father scolded gently, and Maeglin’s eyes were downcast. The sympathy of all was with him now, for they did not see what she did. None of them were ever cornered by Maeglin and given unwanted promises of love. None of them felt his dark eyes constantly upon her, so she could go nowhere she was not espied. Her father never believed her protestations, for how could this be so? Maeglin was her own kin, and no one of the Eldar had ever lusted so closely as this before.</p>
<p>“Maeglin,” she had hissed to Turgon then, tears of outrage and of sorrow streaming down her face, “is singular in all things.”</p>
<p>“It is not worthy of my fair cousin,” Maeglin murmured. “I shall melt it in the forge, and try again, to make something aright for her.”</p>
<p>“You shall not, nephew,” Turgon answered, turning back to his daughter. “Idril, put it on.”</p>
<p>She looked at him with her eyes shining silver. “Will a father command his daughter on her own begetting day?”</p>
<p>“He shall, if she be ungrateful. I say again, let the assembled see the skill of Maeglin.” How she wanted to choke on each perfect, peerless opal; but there was nothing for it. Idril twisted her golden hair around her hands, and caught it in that net of Maeglin’s. How very fitting, how always he would chain her, if he could. <em>Like his father to his mother</em>. She fitted it around her crown, and all murmured their approval, not least of all Turgon. “A work of utter beauty, for the beauty of Gondolin.” Idril folded her hands into her lap and stared at them, cheeks burning with shame. “It is well done, Maeglin.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Uncle. And yet,” he lifted those eyes of his, and Idril could see fire in them. “It is only praise from my dear cousin that I wish, beloved beyond all others.” Turgon smiled at the speech, and looked to his daughter.</p>
<p>She wanted to scream. “None could doubt,” she said, swallowing a stone in her throat (<em>perhaps an opal</em>), “the skill of the Lord of the Mole.”</p>
<p>“I should be happy beyond all things, Idril,” he scooted closer to her on the marble bench, “if I could offer such skill to you forever.”</p>
<p>“I thank you,” said with all the grace she possessed, and this was abundant. “But you are lordly, and I would not wish for another servant, nor to make one of you.” It was not the answer he wished for, he looked as if pierced by a dart, but she was spared more of this talk by her father’s gift.</p>
<p>“And at last, the gift of the father to his daughter.” He handed her another box, this much smaller, and of shell. “And pray she finds no fault with this, too.”</p>
<p>“I-” What was the point in arguing? She lifted the lid, and her eyes sparkled. A green gem lay within, as nothing she had ever seen. It was without setting, and she lifted it into her palm. It caught the light, and flecks of green were thrown all over the hall. The assembled gasped in amazement. “What is this?” she asked in a whisper, hushed with awe. Looking into its perfect depths, for a moment she was a child again, in Tirion, in the House of Finwë; and Fëanor had entered, with his peerless gems about him, one at the breast, and one at each wrist, so that he was as a star among the company.</p>
<p>Her father smiled to see her so overawed. “The greatest of the craft of Enerdhil,” he said, and those gathered murmured praise and envy amongst one another. “A special gift I asked of him, a gem beyond all others. But more than a stone; lift it to your eye, and see the world whole and well again.” Idril did so, and her breath was taken from her. Everything was warm, as in her girlhood – two lights mingled perfectly on the horizon, there was no grinding of the ice, her mother could be found if she only called for her-</p>
<p>“I am glad you let me give my gift first, Uncle!” Maeglin cried, feigning hurt. “For skilled as I am, the jewelcraft of Enerdhil is well beyond me. My gift would seem as pebbles did it follow such a stone.”</p>
<p>“I did not have him set it,” Turgon smiled warmly, “to let the lady pick how best she may prefer it. But perhaps she shall trust you to do so, my sister-son?”</p>
<p>Idril’s hand snapped away from her eye, and her fingers closed tight around the jewel. “I like it as it is,” she said, quick and hard. She determined now that Maeglin must never, ever touch this gem, or its light would be forever dimmed to her.</p>
<p>Turgon scowled at her. “You are being purposefully unkind today, and it is not becoming.”</p>
<p>“I am being purposefully dogged, like the hind in the hunt.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” her father snapped, leaning forward with his fingers gripping the arm of his chair, “you might raise the stone to your father, or his nephew, and better appreciate their own worth, since it seems nothing else shall make you happy today.”</p>
<p>It was too much. Idril gathered her skirts and fled from the hall, the company parting before her like water. But still she heard their murmurs as she departed, trailing after her.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>She did not stop running until she’d reached the king’s fountain, and the strike of her bare feet against the flagstones echoed around her. If her mother were alive, she would be believed, she felt certain. Elenwë would gather her into her arms, and sing lullabies as she had before, and she would have made Turgon see. Idril wept to think of her now. “I am alone in all the city of Gondolin,” she spoke into the waters. “And I have been alone since they cast Eöl from the walls.” For how could she look upon her kinsmen without horror now, when she had seen her own father as merciless as the terrible Morgoth? Were they so very different from Fëanor and his sons in Alqualondë? Was death and judgment theirs to give, or was this the hubris of having raised kingdoms in Middle-Earth? She remembered holding her aunt’s hand as she slipped away, how she had begged her brother to spare the life of her husband. Eöl’s sin was great, for all that he took Aredhel from them. But what was made better for killing him in turn? Were they to become as the beasts, slaughtering one another in fear and hate, without purpose? Idril reached her fingers up to scrub against her scalp, and found them tangled in unmoving hair. That net of Maeglin’s-! She tore it off and threw it into the fountain, and watched the water catch it, so that slowly, too slowly, it sank down, down, down (Eöl being thrown from the walls, down, down), down- Her tears streamed like the fountain-</p>
<p>“Idril.”</p>
<p>She turned. The sun was behind her, and it made her look like a gilded statue in its fading light, so that her shadow fell upon Tuor in the courtyard, and sheltered his eyes from the glare. He smiled at her. “I have been looking for you.” He walked toward her, up the limestone steps. “By the time I made it to the hall, you had already gone. I was told-” He paused to see her scrub her eyes with her long sleeve. “What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>She tried to stop her tears, and yet she couldn’t. “I am,” she gasped, the sob wracking her little body, “a spoiled and ungrateful child.”</p>
<p>“Not so!” the man told her, taking her hand and bidding her sit at the edge of the fountain. “Who says thus?”</p>
<p>“My kingly father.”</p>
<p>“A mistake must have been made,” he told her, and found for her a handkerchief of silk within a pocket of his jerkin. Idril had known Tuor’s father, long ago, when two lost boys found succor in the hidden city – but he was nothing like the boy Huor, like anything she had supposed the race of men to be. Tall he was, and sure, and his smiles were so kind. Once he had not smiled, when first he had come to the city, bringing the words of Ulmo. Then he was stern, like the Lord of Waters himself. But his time among the Gondolindrim had seemed to make him forget all such cares. She liked his strange, blue eyes, and the scruff of his well-kept, golden beard. She liked how much he loved her father, and how quick he was to serve any who might be in need. He was a good man; she felt her sobbing ease. “Tell me of it, and I will see it set right.”</p>
<p>She laughed a little, dabbing her eyes. “This is beyond even you, Man of the House of Hador.” She looked down at her lap, twisting the handkerchief in her hands.</p>
<p>But Tuor tilted her chin back up again, and still he smiled so kindly to her. “For the daughter of Turgon, I shall face any peril. Please, tell me.”</p>
<p>She wished, suddenly, that he had said for her, as she was, and not as the daughter of the lord he loved – but that was foolishness, and anyway, it was the same thing. It made her smile a little. “Oh – he does not understand me. Maeglin is ever at my heels, for he says he loves me not as his cousin, but as a woman – and I cannot make my father believe it.”</p>
<p>At this, Tuor was no longer smiling. “This is a very serious matter.” He reminded her now as he did when he arrived, with the words of Ulmo in his mouth. She watched him with great interest. “Would you that I speak with the king?”</p>
<p>Idril shook her head. “While he loves you, Tuor, I cannot imagine he will heed your council when he would not mine. And more, you have no proof, only my word.”</p>
<p>“Your word should be sufficient for the gods themselves.” He seemed very agitated. “Have I your leave to speak to Maeglin, then?”</p>
<p>Her heart began to hammer. This was not a course she had ever considered: if one such as Tuor interceded, if he told the Lord of the Mole to leave the lady be....would he not be forced to hear? “Yes, but – I am afraid.”</p>
<p>“Of Maeglin?”</p>
<p>“Yes, and for you. I cannot say why, it’s only…” She looked down again, giving a shaky sigh. “It’s only a feeling I have.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Tuor smiled at her. “He’ll do ought to me, and even less to you, after I finally give you your begetting present.” He slid a small bundle, wrapped in white cloth, into her lap, suddenly hesitating. “I meant that in jest, by the way.”</p>
<p>Idril soon saw why. She unwound the cloth, letting it pool at her bare feet, and it revealed a leather scabbard, stamped with the sigil of the king. Her mouth fell open in wonder as she pulled the blade from its sheathe. “How did you come by this?”</p>
<p>“I asked it of Rog,” he smiled, looking anxiously for her approval. The pommel was edged in silver leaves, and a scroll-work of silver had been etched into the blade. Idril was stunned. “The truth is, I was purposefully late to the feast. I had hoped to get you alone, for I did not think your father would approve of such a gift. I know it’s only a dagger, but-” Tuor stopped in sudden horror, for Idril was weeping over it. “Did I err?” he asked her, leaning toward her but daring not to touch her. “Forgive me – I had thought-”</p>
<p>She looked up at him again, tears streaming down her face. “This is why Aredhel left!” She put the dagger back into its scabbard, and hugged it against her breast. “Because Turgon denied her just the same.”</p>
<p>Tuor looked at her with immense concern. “Your father is a wise man, my lady.”</p>
<p>“Aye, he is, and all the worse is his blindness for it. You must see, Tuor, you alone of all in Gondolin – that he tries to keep me safe by ignorance. If I never know the blade, how can I be cut by it? But the sword cuts down the knowing and the unknowing together.”</p>
<p>“That shall not happen to you here.”</p>
<p>“Shall it not?” She lifted her head, and she looked as fierce and righteous as any of her ancestors, the sun a golden crown upon her shining hair. “Did he heed Ulmo’s words, when you spoke them?” Tuor was silent, his mouth shut. “He thinks he can make Gondolin an impregnable armor – instead it weighs us down, unable to fly.”</p>
<p>The man was silent for a long while – but he never gainsaid her. “And Aredhel?” Tuor asked her.</p>
<p>Idril let the dagger rest on her lap, studying its shape. “It was long before your time. My aunt was not a flower to sit and wilt, no bird to be kept within a cage. I know my father kept her out of love and fear, but she yearned for the open fields and forests, as she had known in Valinor.” Her eyes looked far away, as if they could pierce the sea between her and the land of her birth. “And when she was feared dead, how much greater did his concern for me become. The Lord of Waters is not the only one who worries, Tuor.” She looked at him with eyes of preternatural sight. Tuor straightened beside her, and they seemed to see each other as no one else could. “A darkness crept into the city the day Eöl came. I do not say this to scorn Maeglin!” she suddenly cried, her fingers resting on the other’s wrist. Tuor said nothing. “I do not blame him his sire, no matter what any may say of me. I just know that when I saw him – when I saw him thrown from the walls…” her voice trailed off, and she looked not so much a prophetess now, but a woman lost and alone. Perhaps Aredhel had shared such a look in the forests of Nan Elmoth. “The city was tarnished. I felt it, I felt….” She sighed and looked back down at the blade. “I felt the weight of Gondolin for the first time.”</p>
<p>“And you fear,” he finally said, as the stars began to appear on the horizon, “that there will come a day when it will be your downfall, not your salvation.” Her fingers were still at the warm point of his wrist.</p>
<p>“I see, sometimes, the burning of the ships from Alqualondë – but not far away, as we saw it from Aman, but all around me. If I were a child, as I was then, my father would tell me it is only a nightmare. But I do not think so. For did not Mandos promise us as much? What good can we create here, when the foundation was laid in blood and bone?”</p>
<p>“Idril.” She looked at him, and the sun was dying behind the mountains, and the moon had risen up, and his light was in Tuor’s hair. “Beleriand is better for the Noldor. Where would men be, were it not for your kinsmen? And would I be still a thrall of the men of Morgoth? Do not let the pain and the darkness blind you to the beauty and the light.”</p>
<p>At long last, she smiled at him, studying the way the stars reflected in his eyes. She squeezed his wrist gently. “You are right – and I do not think I am blind. For not all the Valar have abandoned us. And I have not felt so afraid for Gondolin since Ulmo sent you to us.” She gently bumped the man with her shoulder. “Or perhaps he merely sent you to me.”</p>
<p>Tuor laughed gently, and bumped her in turn. “You like the dagger, then?”</p>
<p>“It’s wonderful.” She sprang suddenly to her feet and unsheathed it, as if ready for battle. “I shall like it still better if you will spar with me!”</p>
<p>He laughed still more. “What, a dagger against an axe?”</p>
<p>“And why not!” Idril was all light and playfulness again, glittering in the moon. “My blade is keen – I will bet it is an equal for yours! Or are you afraid of me, son of Huor?”</p>
<p>“A little, yes!” He rose, and his smile lit his face. “You elves know where you will go after you depart the circles of the world, but we men have no such certainty!”</p>
<p>Idril re-sheathed her dagger. “Very well – but then I bet I can be the first to reach the end of the Alley of Roses between us on foot!” and she took off at a run before he could start.</p>
<p>“Hey!” Tuor shouted after her, giving chase, and the sound of his boots echoed against the city walls, even as did the silver sound of her bare feet. And Idril laughed, her golden hair streaming behind her, unfettered by any net, and joy was great within her.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Like a lot of things in the Legendarium, there's multiple origin stories for the elessar - but I think they're mostly complimentary, rather than contradictory. This is my version of an origin for the first of the possibly two stones - plus my personal headcanon, that Sting was once a dagger for the Princess of Gondolin, just as Glamdring belonged to Turgon.<br/>Thanks to Pharaoh-Ink for help with the title!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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